Hedge Fund Managers only stay hedge fund managers by being good hedge fund managers and good hedge fund managers get rich. They do this by running money for those who are really, really, really rich. They are not investment vehicles most people who might read this are able to participate in. Many require as much as a million dollar initial investment. And no, you can't even come close to this level of investing in an etf (exchange traded fund or mutual fund). Hedge funds generally do not have as many government restrictions as the investment vehicles the common man has available to them. In other words, the playing field is not even!
Then, some of us think we know what "rich" is, when in reality many of us have no idea. But just for illustration, from:
The Dooh Nibor Economy (that’s “Robin Hood” backwards!)
according to travel and liesure; Yacht Rentals, Villa Rentals, "Experimental Excursions", Luxury Cruises, Vacation Home Rentals, Spa Services.. (and have you seen the price of Cristal these days?). The cost of the AVERAGE high net worth individual’s summer spending on these luxury items was $1.2M.
| Summer Activity | Average Planned Spending |
| Yacht rentals | $384,000 |
| Redecorating | $129,000 |
| Villa rentals | $106,000 |
| Experiential excursions | $103,000 |
| Jewelry/watches | $94,000 |
| Luxury cruises | $92,000 |
| Charitable giving | $82,000 |
| Vacation-home rentals | $82,000 |
| Out-of-home spa services | $61,000 |
| Summer entertaining | $56,000 |
I personally can not remember a time when I planned on spending 1.2 million on a summer vacation. Can You? And since this is America, the home of free capitalism, I can not or will not begrudge those who can the fruits of their labors. After all as the article states, "America is cranking out multi-millionaires at a record pace."
However that same article states the following:
What’s scary is that doubling the amount of people who have more than $10M per household (from 300K to 600K) means there’s $3,000,000,000,000 less available for the other 98% of the of the households as MONEY IS A COMMODITY and can only be possessed by one person OR another.My suspicion is that you and I, me anyway, are in that "other 98% of the households." This article goes on to say that,
While you hear a lot of talk of wealth creation for all, our M1 money supply (before the Fed stopped measuring it’s out-of-control growth) was adding "just" $1Trillion a year to the global economy. If the wealthy households gained $9T in value over the past 10 years, EVEN WITH THE FED MINTING AN AVERAGE OF $500B PER YEAR IN NEW MONEY, then the other $4,000,000,000,000 HAD to come out of the other 98% of US households.and
One of the great tricks of our economy is that there are avenues of wealth creation that are available to those of us who are already rich that are denied to those of you who aren’t.Keep in mind that the article being quoted is written by a "Hedge Fund Manager."
Now if you have the kind of money being talked about above you are probably not going to concern yourself much with the price of gas at the pump or how many MPG's your vehicle gets. In fact you probably haven't pumped your own gas in awhile.
So you are not going to bother yourself with silly details like, "how is it that we are driving fewer miles, oil inventories are increasing even though we imported 2,041,000 barrels perday less than we did last year, yet the price of gas continues to rise? The mentioned figures coming from:
Thursday's Thrust: Why Are They Partying Like It's 1999?
which goes on to state:
See, this solves everything! By paying double for crude and other commodities we can have a "recovery" even if those damn poor people refuse to buy because there are plenty of things they HAVE to buy and we, my fellow top 10%’ers, can MAKE THEM PAY! Do you care that a 20-gallon tank of gas went from $35 last year to $55 last week - of course not, we spend that at Whole Foods (WFMI) on peanut butter…
The magic of commodity inflation, especially on the essential commodites like food and energy (which are not counted as inflation by the Fed since it’s "non-core") is that the average people cannot cut back. Sure they may put off buying new sneakers or a new shirt or replacing the stove but THEY’VE GOTTA EAT and they NEED to drive their cars (unless, of course, they have [snicker] public transportation) so let them desperately try to cut back their consumption by 17% -- WE’LL JUST CHARGE THEM DOUBLE!Now there are many that would have us believe that our current dilemma has been brought about by one party/administration or the other. The spin and propaganda mills on all side are good and very adept at co-opting popular solutions and calling them their own idea. In fact it is possible that our best chance at revolutionary change has been stolen from us by "tea baggers" (For which there are two definitions. Google them and determine which one fits.) who can not even identify "Rick Santelli"(The first to call for a tea party) or define "socialism."
That is how we are "fixing" the economy.
Listening or reading much of the media would have us believing that the current economic difficulties are recent, but are getting better and will get even better if only we listen to those who are paid and profit from our believing one side or the other. We would submit to you, that the real power has a vested interest in keeping us at each others throats so as not to focus on who is really to blame. All of us. Consider the following:
4 Problems That Could Sink America From U.S. News and World Reports
We're uninformed. The healthcare smackdown—sorry, "debate"—is Exhibits A, B, and C. The soaring cost of healthcare is a problem that affects most Americans. It's shrinking paychecks, squeezing small businesses, bankrupting families and swelling the national debt. Yet outraged Americans seem most concerned about fictions like death panels and government-enforced euthanasia, while clinging to the myth that our current system of selective availability and perverse incentives somehow represents capitalist ideals. But let's take a break from that burdensome issue to examine the likelihood that President Obama was born in a foreign country and hoodwinked America into believing he was eligible to run for president.
People who lack the sense to question Big Lies always end up in deep trouble. Being well informed takes work, even with the Internet. In a democracy, that's simply a civic burden. If we're too foolish or lazy to educate ourselves on healthcare, global warming, financial reform, and other complicated issues, then we're signing ourselves over to special interests who see nothing wrong with plundering our national—and personal—wealth.See also from "9 signs of America in decline", Education which refers to "knowledge" in this manner:
education. American 15-year-olds score below the average for advanced nations on math and science literacy. But don't worry, our nation's future leaders are still ahead of their peers in Mexico, Turkey, Greece, and a few other places.to which we will add the reference to poverty as we are convinced ignorance breeds poverty which we prefer to refer to as "economic slavery."
Poverty. The U.S. poverty rate, about 17 percent, is third worst among the advanced nations tracked by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In that sample, only Turkey and Mexico are worse.to which we will add this quote from "4 Problems That Could Sink America", as we believe it contributes to both, "ignorance and poverty":
Kids in Asia spend the summer studying math and science while American mall rats are texting each other about Britney and Miley. "We need a different mind-set," says Guillen. "People need to invest more in their own future. Instead of buying stuff at the mall, spend the money on evening classes. Learn a language or skills you don't have."
I recently interviewed entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, who transformed his father's neighborhood liquor store into a $60 million business anchored by the Web site winelibrarytv.com. An overnight success? Hardly. Vaynerchuk has big plans, and he works at least 16 hours a day to achieve them. "If you want to work eight hours a day," he says, "you're going to get eight-hour-a-day results. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to hear you bitch about money if you're only willing to work eight hours a day."(emphasis ours).
The tea party ranters who argue for free market capitalism and those that would warn us against socialism need to understand something, to a certain extent free market capitalism is partly responsible for getting us into this mess and we are already a socialist state! The difference being that we would replace the word "state" in the definition by the term "Corporate/Government alliance" though we would prefer "gang of politicians and bankers."
From "How the Government is swallowing the Economy":
By one measure, the government already plays an outsize role in our so-called free-market economy—and it has little to do with the recession. Economist Gary Shilling has calculated that 58 percent of the population is dependent on the government for "major parts of their income," including teachers, soldiers, bureaucrats, and other government employees; welfare and Social Security recipients; government pensioners; public housing beneficiaries; and people who work for government contractors. By 2018, Shilling estimates, an astounding 67 percent of Americans could be dependent on the government for their livelihood. The implications aren't comforting.Add to that programs such as "cash for clunkers", state handouts such as the Florida's Bright Scholarships programs (see links:
Lou Dobbs says thats the stuff of Revolutions.
maybe individual rights activists could learn from the left,
and
cash for clunkers-situational conservatism)
and the number of individuals I know working for state agnecies or agencies that receive funding from state agencies who as part of their employment agreement are prohibited from participating in political demonstrations and you can see that for all our blathering we are already more "there" than not !
1950 is the starting point for Schillings calculations. Harry Truman (D) was President and 29% of the American Population depended on the Government. By 1980 that number had grown to 61%.
During those years the following served as President:
| 33 | Harry S. Truman | 1945-1953 | Democrat |
| 34 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | 1953-1961 | Republican |
| 35 | John F. Kennedy | 1961-1963 | Democrat |
| 36 | Lyndon B. Johnson | 1963-1969 | Democrat |
| 37 | Richard M. Nixon | 1969-1974 | Republican |
| 38 | Gerald R. Ford | 1974-1977 | Republican |
| 39 | Jimmy Carter | 1977-1981 | Democrat |
Schillings states that from 1980 to 2000 American dependence decreased.
Presidents serving during that time were:
| 40 | Ronald Reagan | 1981-1989 | Republican |
| 41 | George Bush | 1989-1993 | Republican |
| 42 | Bill Clinton | 1993-2001 | Democrat |
In 2000 the trend reversed. Presidents during this time period have been:
| 43 | George W. Bush | 2001-2008 | Republican |
| 44 | Barack H. Obama | 2009 - | Democrat |
So from 1950 to our present dependency on the government there have been 6 Democratic Presidents and 6 Republican Presidents with arguably the largest government expansion occurring under George Bush (R). If you view this chart you will see that record debt was incurred consistently under Reagan, George Bush 1 and George Bush 2 .
So we could use these illustrations to demonstrate that despite what you may be led to believe Republicans have been largely responsible expansionist government policies which of course would prove the holy trinity of Rush, Hannity and Beck liars and send the rest of the extreme right into apoplectic fits.
However it is not our intention to place blame on one party or the other as our contention is the blame lies elsewhere and things are never as simple as we would like them to be. There are many variables that would need to be factored in. Make up of congress and the Supreme Court over those years and international conditions as examples. It is also stated:
but it reversed course after that, and it seems poised to keep going up. The size of government has generally held steady since 2000, but globalization, technology, and other factors have led to weak private-sector job creation over the past decade. And that was before the recession destroyed more than 8 million jobs. So the government has employed an increased share of Americans. The other big change since 2000 has been a near tripling of food-stamp recipients, as low earners got left out of the housing and stock-market booms and then suffered worse during the recession.As technology advances, baby boomers age, life span is extended and we continue to imprison more citizens than any other free nation on earth this situation will only get worse. The public burden is going to naturally increase dramatically unless we adopt policies policies most currently reject such as euthanasia and setting up death farms as per the movie Soylent Green (circa 1973).
So just exactly where does the blame for our current situation lie. Not on President Bush or President O'bama we would contend. Voting records from the years 1960 to 2008 as reported by the Federal Election Commission. Data drawn from Congressional Research Service reports, Election Data Services Inc., and State Election Offices ( as inaccurate as they may be when you read the footnotes), show that in over half the two year election cycles less than half the population bothered to vote.
Out of the numbers of persons that did vote we must ask ourselves, how many voted along party lines as opposed to how many were truly informed as to the issues? Based on some observations I fear the answer to that question may be the scariest of all.
Furthermore if we add to Schilling's,
58 percent of the population is dependent on the government for "major parts of their income," including teachers, soldiers, bureaucrats, and other government employees; welfare and Social Security recipients; government pensioners; public housing beneficiaries; and people who work for government contractors. By 2018, Shilling estimates, an astounding 67 percent of Americans could be dependent on the government for their livelihood. The implications aren't comforting.the numbers of persons dependent on the income of the listed above we believe we can prove that America has already entered into a socialist state ruled by a Corporate/Government Alliance consisting of the "privileged few".
The proof would be to ask those supported by the listed jobs above who say they are free market capitalist and against socialism to quit their jobs.
I suspect we would find that the loud mouths that claim a desire for freedom and independence would be quickly shut by the desire for safety/security! And yes, we are cognizant of the need for a certain
number of Federal and State workers. Just not at the expense of constitutional rights.
We the People are to blame for our current situation.
We the People are the Solution.
If not now, When? Richard Bach from the book "Illusions"Add to Technorati Favorites
